World-News

http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/5074/


Informant: jensenmk

From ufpj-news

The Bush administration has declared itself immune from whistleblower protections for federal workers under the Clean Water Act, according to legal documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. As a result of an opinion issued by a unit within the Office of the Attorney General, federal workers will have little protection from official retaliation for reporting water pollution enforcement breakdowns, manipulations of science or cleanup failures.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/090406B.shtml

We used to think the voting system was something like the traffic laws - a set of rules clear to everyone, enforced everywhere, with penalties for transgressions; we used to think, in other words, that we had a national election system. As it turns out, except for a rudimentary federal framework, US elections are shaped by a dizzying mélange of inconsistently enforced laws, conflicting court rulings, local traditions, various technology choices, and partisan trickery. Mother Jones provides a list - partial, but emblematic - of American democracy's more glaring weak spots.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/090406Z.shtml

Yahoo! News

08/30/06

A U.S. student who sued school officials after he was made to censor his T-shirt that labelled President George W. Bush 'Chicken-Hawk-In-Chief' and a former alcohol and cocaine abuser won an appeal on Wednesday to wear the T-shirt to school. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favour of Zachery Guiles, who through his parents claimed his free speech rights had been violated when school officials made him put duct tape over parts of his T-shirt that showed a Bush image surrounded by cocaine, a razor blade, a straw and a martini. Guiles, who as a seventh grader in 2004 wore the T-shirt to Williamstown Middle High School in Vermont once a week for two months after purchasing it at an anti-war rally, appealed the case after a lower court ruled in favour of the school...

http://tinyurl.com/o8rkc


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

#Die Linkspartei.PDS: Pressemitteilungen

04. September 2006

Zur heute stattfindenden Sonderkonferenz der Innenminister und der Debatte um eine Antiterror-Datei erklärt die stellvertretende Parteivorsitzende Katina Schubert:

Die strikte Trennung von Polizei und Geheimdienst dient dem Schutz der Bürgerinnen und Bürger vor unberechtigten Zugriffen des Staates und gehört zu den Lehren aus dem deutschen Faschismus. Mit der geplanten Antiterror-Datei wird dieses Trennungsgebot faktisch aufgehoben. Es droht ein riesiger Datenwust. Niemand kann mehr nachvollziehen, welche Daten über ihn wo und warum gespeichert sind. Das Grundrecht auf informationelle Selbstbestimmung wird ad absurdum geführt. Die von Bayerns Innenminister Beckstein angestoßene Debatte für die Aufnahme der Religionszugehörigkeit in eine solche Datei führt dazu, dass Menschen muslimischen Glaubens unter Generalverdacht gestellt werden. Das läuft jedem Integrationsansatz zuwider und nährt terroristische Bewegungen eher, als dass es sie bekämpft.

http://sozialisten.de/presse/presseerklaerungen/view_html?zid=33850

Strawberry Hill residents are gearing up for the second round of a fight against a phone mast being built within 500m of two primary schools, after a telecommunications giant appealed the council's refusal.

T-Mobile applied to Richmond Council, in March, for permission to install a 18m tower with six mobile phone antennae at Strawberry Hill Golf Club.

The new mast would have been in the southeast corner of Strawberry Hill Golf Club on metropolitan open land next to the railway line between Fulwell and Strawberry Hill stations.

At the time of the application Derek Newson, of Strawberry Hill Road, said this would put it about 450m from St James's RC Primary School, on Stanley Road, and 320m from Stanley Infant School, on Strathmore Road In April, the mast was refused because it would be detrimental to the appearance of the area.

But T-Mobile lodged an appeal against this decision earlier and the national planning inspectorate will now make a final decision.

© Copyright 2001-2006 Newsquest Media Group

http://www.richmondandtwickenhamtimes.co.uk/news/localnews/display.var.902267.0.phone_company_appeal_mast_refusal.php

Today OPED NEWS, the premier digest of progressive opinion and news, is featuring the controversial new TV spot of Charles Sanders, running in the Special Democratic Congressional primary in the 3rd district of Ohio on FRIDAY, September 15th.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_thepen_060903_charles_sanders__28oh_.htm

When a courageous candidate like Charles Sanders stands up to directly confront the Bush administration on their Iraq lies, with no backing down and no apologies, shall we do everything we can to support and stand with him or shall we not?

Most of all Charles needs a hundred more people today to help him make phone calls to his constituents, to get the word out that there is someone in their district who is fighting for them. All you have to do is set a password for yourself (or use your existing Blades of Grass password) and you can be helping out with this valiant campaign right now

PHONE BANK: http://www.charleswsanders.org/virtualphones2_sanders.html

You can also make a donation (if you have not done so already) to encourage Charles to run as many of these "call to action" TV spots as possible.

TV SPOT DONATIONS: http://www.charleswsanders.org/donations4a.php

And be sure to check out all these other insightful opinion pieces on Oped News, with some of the most informed and insightful commentators in the country.

TODAY'S OTHER TOP OPED NEWS ARTICLES

Traitors and Heroes/Traitors as Heroes http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_rob_kall_060827_traitors_and_heroes_2f.htm This is the beginning of a series of articles and conversations about traitors-- to the US, the constitution, humanity, freedom, democracy... It will explore who they are, who they treasonously betray for and what they get in return. You're invited to join the conversation.

Sistani Led His Followers to Elect Iraq's New Regime. Today He Walked Away http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_ron_full_060903_sistani_led_his_foll.htm The Independent is reporting that Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has "abandoned attempts to restrain his followers" and no longer believes he can stand in the way of the growing civil war.

Many High Bush Officials Broke Laws Against Torture http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_sherwood_060902_many_high_bush_offic.htm More than 20 high officials in the Bush Administration bear responsibility for the radical change allowing U.S. military jailers and CIA agents to torture prisoners. Former President Bill Clinton and several of his CIA aides also bear responsibility.

First Time Released Documents Expose Subservient Congress http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_sibel_ed_060902_first_time_released_.htm These letters show that oversight of Special Access Programs (SAPs) at the Department of Defense is nonexistent because no one in congress has a high enough security clearance.

Book Review, of Thom Hartmann's SCREWED http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_kall_2c_ro_060829_rob_kall_book_review.htm Hartmann has hit another grand slam homerun with his newest book, Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class -- And What We Can Do About It

Learning from Hezbollah http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_stephen__060901_learning_from_hezbol.htm It is ultimately acts of generosity and support that win in people's hearts and minds. The United States and Israel have failed to implement this key truth in Iraq and Lebanon.

US Army Contemplates Redrawing Middle East Map to Stave-off Looming Global Meltdown http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_nafeez_m_060831_us_army_contemplates.htm The US Army is exploring plans to reconfigure national borders across the Middle East, just as a high-level US source warns of imminent convering global crises.

Heil Me! An Open Letter From Donald Rumsfeld http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne__28as_tran_060831_heil_me_21__an_open_le.htm Clarifying Rumsfeld Remarks

Fighting Burnout: An Activist's Lament http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_joan_bru_060830_fighting_burnout_3a__a.htm While I'm not exactly equating my activism with the travails of unexpected twins, there is a certain resemblance. Getting so tired that I can't put sentences together, feeling overwhelmed, having so much to do without the confidence that it's even physically possible to do it all. Actually, the more I think about it, it really is very similar.

Who Most Threatens America? http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_ron_full_060831_who_most_threatens_a.htm If the Bush regime is at war with those they hold responsible for the collapse of the World Trade Towers, then it is truly a stealth war. Bush never mentions bin-Laden's name anymore, even though he began his 'hunt' in 2001 demanding his apprehension, "dead or alive."

14 Characteristics Of Fascism / We Have Them All http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_allen_l__060831_14__characteristics_.htm With the four horseman of hubris (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and Bush) in full gallop, shouting their war cry of 'Islamic fascism' and systematically misquoting and demonizing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ~ it's time for America to review the 14 characteristics of fascism and, in the process, face our own growing neocon fascist state.


From The Pen

"Ring of Fire Radio Show"
Sun Sep 3, 2006 21:42

Robert Kennedy on Dick Cheney
AUDIO: http://www.apfn.net/pogo/A007I060903am07.MP3


Source: http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495;article=104221;show_parent=1

By Graeme Wilson,
Political Correspondent
(Filed: 04/09/2006)

Councillors have been banned from discussing local park-and-ride schemes if they own a car under an ethical watchdog created by John Prescott. There is shock at the scale of the chaos John Prescott has created

The Deputy Prime Minister is accused today of undermining local democracy and stifling free speech by imposing "draconian" rules on thousands of councillors.

A damning report reveals how local authority members are being barred from speaking or voting on subjects simply because they are perceived to have taken a position on the issue.

Even councillors who have been elected specifically to fight a particular issue have fallen foul of the rules and found themselves told they cannot speak or vote on it.

The controversy centres on the Standards Board for England, which was launched by Mr Prescott in 2001. The Deputy Prime Minister claimed that the new body would help to ensure high ethical standards in local government.

The board handles complaints about councillors' behaviour and is supported by a network of ethical standards officers, who are each paid £61,000 a year. Each authority also has its own monitoring officers who advise councillors on their conduct.

In 2003-04 the board handled more than 3,500 allegations and launched 1,105 investigations. Sanctions were imposed on more than 200 councillors who were judged to have breached the code of conduct.

The report's authors - Owen Paterson, the shadow transport minister, and Gerald Howarth, the shadow defence minister - said they were shocked by the scale of the chaos the Deputy Prime Minister had created.

There is particular concern about the board's belief that councillors should not be allowed to debate a subject if they have already made up their minds on the issue — the crime of "predetermination."

Councillors on South Cambridgeshire district council, for instance, were warned that they should not "pronounce on a park-and-ride scheme if they drove a car", says the report, A Question of Standards.

The report adds that the councillors were also told "they might be disqualified from discussing the siting of a mobile phone mast if they themselves used a mobile phone".

In another example, John Pickersgill, a member of Derwentside council in Co Durham, organised a local referendum on plans to build more wind turbines in his ward. His survey found that four out of five local people opposed the proposals.

However, when he tried to raise his findings in a council meeting on the issue, he was judged to have a "prejudicial interest" and was excluded from the room.

Despite concerns about the system, Sir Anthony Holland, the board's chairman, has defended the rules on pre-determination. "It simply means that decisions shouldn't be made if people are not willing to consider the alternatives, ie they must not have closed minds," he said earlier this year.

However, the Local Government Association, in a recent report, urged ministers "to ensure that councillors are not legally restricted from speaking out for their communities" on issues such as planning.

gwilson@telegraph.co.uk

© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2006

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/09/04/nprescott04.xml

--------

Although I think this must have given everyone a good laugh for a Monday morning when John Prescott and ethics are mentioned in the same sentence, I feel this is very relevant to what we have been discussing recently re OFCOM. They surely are as biased as you can be when it comes to determining ethics and mobile phone masts!

Cheers
Sylvia


From Mast Sanity/Mast Network

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2102-2334839,00.html


Informant: Lew Rockwell

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig7/avnery6.html



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Avnery

http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/5072/


Informant: jensenmk

From ufpj-news

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/4158663.html


Informant: NHNE

http://www.newstatesman.com/200609040016


A message from Eleanor

Video
http://tinyurl.com/peckk


From Information Clearing House

First Time Released Documents Expose Subservient Congress.
http://nswbc.org/Press%20Advisories/PR-TiceLetters-Sep3-06.htm


From Information Clearing House

Video
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14817.htm

Despite the United States presenting the American Way as an offer the rest of the world can’t refuse, increasing numbers of nations and groups are successfully resisting. Since opposition threatens their relentlessly acquisitive agenda, the US power elite demonize leaders like Hugo Chavez and nations like Iran.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14812.htm

Many activists and experts argue that the tests undermine the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty on nuclear weapons and that the Bush administration is carrying them out to use them to boost its efforts to develop new nuclear arms.

http://tinyurl.com/n6pqb


From Information Clearing House

Put boldly and simply, we have to drop a nuclear bomb on Iran.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14819.htm

Mass Murder for Iranians
http://www.lewrockwell.com/tennant/tennant14.html

The consequences of an Iran with nuclear weapons are not only the capability they're seeking to deliver them through ballistic missiles, but also the possibility they could transfer a nuclear weapon to a terrorist group."

http://tinyurl.com/hn3c4


From Information Clearing House

Mrs Hamilton-Bing said that anger at seeing her son sent to fight a dishonest war had driven her to take action, adding that many other military families shared her views.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article1269497.ece


From Information Clearing House

Bush administration policymakers and their congressional backers may get some unwelcome news from a new analysis on Iraq that the office of intelligence czar John Negroponte will soon produce.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14638232/site/newsweek/


From Information Clearing House

War is Sell

Documentary By Brian Standing

How do you sell a war? How do the techniques of government propagandists, public relations consultants and commercial advertisers work, and why are they so effective? How did the United States become a master of domestic war propaganda over the course of the twentieth century?

Click here to view
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14800.htm

By Stephen Fleischman

The war in Iraq is the best example of an oligarchy at work-produced and managed to make money and to secure the remaining reserves of oil in the world. As they say, the world's oil has "peaked". It's all down hill from here, so we better grab it before somebody else does. To do this, we're got to keep a perpetual war spinning in the best oil-producing areas, the Middle East and the Caspian region.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14807.htm

By Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed

09/02/06

"Dissidentvoice"

In a little-noted article printed in early August in the Armed Forces Journal, a monthly magazine for officers and leaders in the United States military community, early retired Major Ralph Peters sets out the latest ideas in current US strategic thinking. And they are extremely disturbing.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14810.htm

Beachten Sie die Glasfiber-Imitation eines Daches zur Tarnung von Mobilfunk-Antennen!

http://www.fiberglas-technik.de/hb-hochbau.html

Knut W. Schlanert

Light snowfalls, dry summer leave Lakes Michigan, Huron near historic low levels

By James Janega
Tribune staff reporter
September 3, 2006

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0609030287sep03,1,2724906,print.story

A decade of warm winters with sporadic snowfall has failed to refill the snow-dependent Great Lakes, with falling water levels bringing the top ever closer to the bottom in Lakes Michigan and Huron.

The ebb has raised cries to dredge harbors, cost lake freighters small fortunes and meant trouble for breakwaters, which can survive the fiercest storms but won't suffer exposure to the air.

As the lake floor unexpectedly peers up through shallow spots, experts and observers say the situation has offered a dramatic lesson in the ancient machinery that empties and refills the Great Lakes.

It is gravity, and in the lakes, it is working on a massive scale.

A billion years ago, North America tried to tear itself apart, and the leftover rift became the Great Lakes. Dying mountains and sprawling mud flats filled it with sand and shale.

A continentwide glacier tamped it down next, then filled what remained as it melted 10,000 years ago. That water has been replaced 100 times over, continuously shoved out by more recently melted snows.

The system is time-tested and works well, provided it's fueled properly.

When snows are small and sporadic, problems arise, said Scott Thieme, chief of Great Lakes hydraulics and hydrology for the Army Corps of Engineers in Detroit. Last winter's spotty snowfalls are a good example.

"It [was] just melting in pieces instead of one big slug in the spring," Thieme said. "We just didn't get a huge spring ride--it wasn't doing bad in the April-May time period, but it did suffer in the summer time period."

Not too long ago, the lakes were brimming with water. Levels sloshed far above average in 1986 and 1997 in Lakes Michigan and Huron--technically considered the same lake because they rise and fall together.

The snow that supplies them blankets forests in central Ontario and Interstate Highway 70 in western Ohio. From Minnesota nearly to Montreal, the land works to feed the lakes. Yet because the area is so big, the lower lakes sometimes live separately from the lakes upstream.

Lakes Ontario and Erie are flourishing at average levels this year, after a series of dying tropical storms dumped what was left of their water on them in 2005. Lake Superior, on the other hand, is in drought, as is northern Lake Michigan, and the upper lakes are suffering accordingly.

Dry summer didn't help

A dry summer exacerbated last year's mediocre winter, whose meltwater trickled out as quickly as it could sprinkle in. The disappointing result is a level at about the low reached in 2000--and not far from other historic lows in the 1960s and the Dust Bowl era.

As of late August--typically the high point of the lakes' annual swelling--Lake Michigan is 2 inches lower than it was two months ago. It's down 2 inches from 2005 and is 19 inches below its long-term average.

"It's just been waffling around the low point," said Cynthia Sellinger, lakes hydrologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Ann Arbor, Mich. "Does it matter that the lakes are low? Yeah, it matters."

It matters to sailboat owners obliged to polish piloting skills around once-submerged sandbars, and to lake freighters running with partly empty holds to clear the bottom.

And around older harbors, like Chicago, the low water has brought an unexpected threat to the wooden pilings beneath breakwaters: rot.

"You would expect to develop problems after a big storm event, or after a major problem with ice," said Steve Hungness, chief of operations for the Army Corps of Engineers in Chicago. But mild winters make an unlikely and potent enemy.

The curving cement crescent most people think of as Chicago's breakwater is actually just a concrete cap. Beneath it, a 20-foot stack of lumber holds it up, vestiges of virgin Wisconsin and Michigan forests felled in the 1880s. Protected by rubble, it has rested in watery comfort, impervious to the elements.

Until now.

Low water since 2000 has let airborne bacteria flourish, weakening the wood and compromising the breakwall, Hungness said. Three 60-foot sections of the wall have dropped a few feet in recent years, and repairs are needed soon.

Smaller cargo ship loads

The menace for cargo ships is not air, but fear of grounding. Thousand-foot freighters now move so nerve-rackingly close to the bottom that crews aren't loading them as full.

"Every inch we lose, we would lose 120 tons of cargo capacity" to make it down the St. Lawrence Seaway, said Dennis Mahoney, president of the United States Great Lakes Shipping Association. The lost cargo's value translates to between $6,000 and $12,000 per voyage, he said.

A pinch is also felt for carriers on the upper lakes, said Glen Nekvasil, vice president of the Lake Carriers' Association. Loads are being reduced by 500 tons to navigate locks between Lake Superior and Lake Michigan at Sault Ste. Marie.

Still, loads bring the massive ships to within inches of the bottom at the locks and in destination harbors.

In harbors, marina managers say shallower spots have been closed or rented for inflatable dinghies and jet skis. Wilmette workers have had to move boats around, and boat owners have paid to dredge the harbor twice in the last year.

In Saugatuck, Mich., yachtsmen leery of a sandbar in Lake Kalamazoo have taken to following the Star of Saugatuck--the theory being that if the paddle-wheeler can make it, they can. Only a few have gotten stuck in a lake that locals are convinced can be navigated on foot if one knows where to walk.

It all boils down to one visceral and unforgettable image--an up-close look at what long has lain beneath. It's the bottom, they say, and they shudder.

"It's mucky. It's silty," said Wilmette Harbor Association Executive Director Sabine Herber, whose north suburban marina is often at odds with Lake Michigan and its moods.

"Eventually, it's a clay bottom," she said. "But there's a lot of muck on top of that."

jjanega@tribune.com

Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune


Informant: binstock

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/01/AR2006090101800.html


Informant: binstock

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article1325467.ece


Informant: binstock

by Tom DeWeese

The Principles of Freedom In a Free Society, government shouldn’t be in the energy business. It shouldn’t be holding congressional hearings to rule on the kind of toilet you should have in your home.....

http://www.newswithviews.com/DeWeese/tom60.htm

http://www.buergerwelle.de/pdf/oegt.doc

Mit freundlichen Grüßen übersandt,

Univ.-Doz. Dr. Ferdinand Ruzicka
Habilitiert für „Medizinische Physik mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Zytophysik“ (cytophysics) an der Medizinischen Universität Wien
http://www.mikrowellensmog.info

--------

Wenn Handys süchtig machen
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/3434087/



http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=Mikrowellensyndrom

"How low can they go? I refer of course to the latest vitriol directed at Valerie and Joe Wilson by the likes of Christopher Hitchens and Fred Hiatt of the Washington Post, who claim that Joe Wilson, not Bush administration officials, is responsible for destroying his wife's cover and exposing her as a CIA operative. Hitchens's battle with the bottle may account for his addled thinking, but what is Hiatt's excuse?" asks Larry C. Johnson.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/090206Y.shtml